Navigating the Prospective Motherhood Career Penalty: Challenges and Strategies
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CambridgeA Cambridge Judge BusinessJudge Business School School White Paper Discussion Paper for the Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre NAVIGATING THE PROSPECTIVE MOTHERHOOD CAREER PENALTY: CHALLENGES AND STRATEGIES Sucheta Nadkarni Monique Boddington Stacey Kurtz Campkin Rasmus Pichler 4 Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre The Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre (WLC) is a centre committed to help women realise and embrace their potential in order to become successful leaders. Part of Cambridge Judge Business School, the WLC achieves meaningful impact globally, across a wide range of organisations: from large companies to small start-ups; within for-profit to non-profit sectors, from corporations to government agencies. By generating support for gender diversity in senior leadership positions, we will foster the next generation of women leaders and expand the pool of women with the requisite leadership skills. How will we achieve our mission? Impactful research – The WLC undertakes cutting-edge research to discover the challenges within the work environment and use it to generate practical solutions into the issues. Such research will enable us to make a meaningful difference in gender equality and women’s empowerment globally. Innovative programmes – research findings are used to create the basis of our women’s leadership programmes, aimed at inspiring prospective female leaders and employers. Multi-faceted approach – throughout the year, in addition to our research, we offer a wide variety of panel events, workshops and our flagship annual conference to foster thought leadership, dialogue and action. We do so to engage as many people as possible to increase the support base for gender diversity in the work environment. Inclusivity policy – The WLC is open to everyone, no matter their gender, age or position. We invite everyone to be a part of our community to help spread our message of diversity and create networks to promote open dialogue and offer successful solutions. This inclusive bottom-up platform is an important cornerstone of the WLC. www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/women Contents 1 Professor Sucheta Nadkarni | 1967-2019 2 Co-author biographies 3 Summary 5 Introduction 6 Prospective motherhood penalty 8 Survey study: sample, survey design and analysis 9 Results part 1: Stereotypes and career outcomes of the prospective motherhood penalty 10 Part 2: Five effective strategies for navigating the prospective motherhood penalty 14 Conclusions 18 Selected references 20 2 Professor Sucheta Nadkarni | 1967-2019 Professor Sucheta Nadkarni sadly passed away in October 2019 before this paper could be published. Sucheta arrived at Cambridge Judge Business School in 2014 to take up the position of Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management. Sucheta was also Head of the Strategy & International Business subject group and a Professorial Fellow of Newnham College. Sucheta achieved much in her sadly shortened life. She was a force of nature, with enormous energy and drive and a great love for her work, publishing consistently and regularly in the top journals in her field. Sucheta served as the Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal (2016-2019) and as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Management (2011-2016) in addition to serving on several editorial boards. Sucheta was active in projects with companies such as Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, Newton Asset Management and BNY Mellon in the areas of strategic change and leadership. Sucheta’s main research interests were in strategic leadership and competitive dynamics, as well as gender diversity. In addition, with great enthusiasm, Sucheta embraced the Women’s Leadership Initiative, initially as faculty lead, becoming the Director of the Wo+Men’s Leadership Centre in 2017. She established the consistently oversubscribed Executive Education Rising Women Leaders programme that focused on supporting women to aspire and achieve in their professional lives, with the goal of fostering the next generation of women leaders. In addition, Sucheta was Gender Equality Champion at the University of Cambridge (2016-2019). She was very generous in including PhD students and other colleagues in her research and mentoring her students. Sucheta won many awards for her work and undertook pioneering work on gender diversity, including the representation of women on corporate boards and in senior executive positions. Co-author biographies 3 Dr Monique Boddington Research Associate at the Entrepreneurship Centre, Cambridge Judge Business School and Interim Deputy Director, MSt in Entrepreneurship, Cambridge Judge Business School Dr Monique Boddington’s research includes the study of entrepreneurial teams, entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurship and gender, and the use of sociological approaches to broaden our understanding of entrepreneurial activity. Monique leads the EVER project, which is a longitudinal qualitative study of the teams within of the teams within Accelerate Cambridge. This project aims to understand the strategic decision- making of early ventures and how teams pivot over time. She is also currently working on a project exploring the impact of gender on entrepreneurship in the gaming industry. Previously, she worked on multiple EU-funded projects looking at the impact of entrepreneurial education and remains passionate about understanding how research can improve the delivery and impact of entrepreneurship education to educate the next generation of entrepreneurs. Her original background is in archaeology having completed a BA and MA in Archaeology at the University of Nottingham and taken part in excavations across Europe. Monique has a PhD from the University of Cambridge and her thesis focused on applying philosophy to archaeology to look at the nature of knowledge creation of the past. Stacey Kurtz Campkin Head of Aldeburgh Young Musicians at Snape Maltings Stacey passionately believes that creativity and the arts can change lives and create an innovative and empathetic future. During her bachelor’s degree in music performance from Northwestern University in Chicago, she played with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra in South Africa and was introduced to community music projects, inspiring her to pursue a career in this field. Stacey did her master’s degree in music performance at the Royal Academy of Music and started working at the Royal Opera House after graduating. After four years of working at the Royal Opera House on community outreach programmes, her interest in education drew her to Wigmore Hall to manage their Schools and Early Years programme. Stacey graduated with her MBA from Cambridge Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge in May 2019. 4 Co-author biographies Rasmus Pichler PhD candidate in Strategic Management at Cambridge Judge Business School Rasmus’s main research interests include corporate wrongdoing – corporate actions that violate social norms and harm stakeholders – and the role of businesses in society. In particular, Rasmus is interested in how the characteristics of top managers and corporate governance structures affect decision making about corporate wrongdoing. His PhD research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and by a Cambridge Trust Vice Chancellor’s Award. Rasmus holds an MPhil degree in Strategy, Marketing & Operations from the University of Cambridge. Prior to embarking on his PhD research, Rasmus worked in the corporate social responsibility department of a global automotive supplier and as a management consultant for clients in the technology, mobility and financial service sectors. Summary 5 Whereas the motherhood penalty has been well documented as a major workplace issue for women with children, this Discussion Paper explores the largely unaddressed phenomenon of the prospective motherhood penalty – harm to the careers of women who are seen as potential mothers. This is a vitally important issue in an era when an increasing number of women have chosen not to have children, or to do so at a later age. Based on a survey of 115 male and female middle and senior executives, the results point to a prospective motherhood penalty in the form of negative stereotypes against women viewed as mothers regardless of their motherhood status. Women without children were perceived more negatively than men without children in areas ranging from commitment to competence, with little statistical difference between women with children and without children. Similarly, women without children reported significantly higher negative career outcomes (fewer pay raises and promotions, and less challenging projects) than men without children. The Discussion Paper suggests five strategies to combat this prospective motherhood penalty: authenticity, finding a passionate niche, lifelong learning, sponsorship by a mentor, and a circle of support. 6 Introduction Academic research and insight from practitioners increasingly recognise a major factor contributing to the gender pay gap and barriers for women to rise to senior management positions: the motherhood penalty. The motherhood penalty reflects a stereotypical bias where women are penalised in the workplace for being mothers. Mothers are often perceived under this stereotype as being less competent, less hardworking and lacking commitment in the workplace. As a result, pregnant women or women with children miss out on challenging assignments, promotion, jobs and pay raises, all of which are essential for career growth and development. Relatedly, the choice to be child free is on the rise in many parts of the